Two Part Rhythm
by Lysana
Summary: Sequel to the episode "The Midnight Sun." This little story of mine gives Norma, Mrs. Bronson, and everyone else two things the episode was missing: an explanation and a happy ending. There was a good reason Earth was leaving the sun. Oneshot, complete.


After I woke from my terrifying fever dream of the Earth's wild approach toward the sun, dear Mrs. Bronson could hardly bring herself to tell me what was really happening. But her honesty was enough to overcome her wish to shelter me. And she told me that she knew I would want to learn the truth.

"We're going _away_ from the sun, Norma," she told me that night, in a voice cracked with sympathy. "I'm afraid we're going to freeze, soon. We're all really going to die, after all." Then she broke down crying and hugged me, as I held her close in anxious pity of my own. "I'm so sorry, dear," she almost pleaded. "I wish I could tell you there was nothing to your dream...!"

"It's all right, Mrs. Bronson," I answered her, wanting to believe it so completely that she would be convinced as well. And after my dream, it was really not too hard to accept the idea of a cold, quiet death.

But it would still be death. We pulled back from each other, still holding on to each other's shoulders, and looked into each other's eyes with a shared knowledge of that fate. And I knew we both understood that we were both very much afraid.

That was a week ago, before the connection of the worlds was made.

* * *

_This is the story of two brave women who thought their world was dying. But between the deadly extremes of heat and cold lies the warm steadfastness of the human heart - and the cool-headed planning of other kindly minds._

_You see, there's no telling where even the most frightening journey may lead. Not only here in our own everyday world, but also in the Twilight Zone._

* * *

On our coasting outward spiral into the dark and chill of space, we began to notice that a large red body was appearing to loom larger and larger in the sky. It might have reminded me of the growing, monstrous sun from my dream, but it didn't. Somehow this shape was friendlier, a growing comfort rather than a threat.

Maybe because we knew it was our sister planet, Mars.

When the red world loomed almost as big as the width of the sky above our town, a strange aircraft came down to meet us across that short, windy distance from the world that had once looked as small as a star. Mrs. Bronson and I watched together from the window as it landed on the snow outside. Snow that, I suddenly realized, had stopped falling from the darkened sky.

After everything else, I couldn't be afraid of the people who came out of that five-winged plane. Even my anxiously protective friend Mrs. Bronson relaxed when we saw the friendly smiles that warmed their green traffic-light eyes and crinkled their smooth green faces.

It turns out that the people of Mars had realized that a crisis was approaching. I don't understand all of the science, but they have told us that our Earth was really about to start moving towards the sun, just like in my dream, while their Mars was starting to slowly drift away. Using their engines and magnetic devices, they say, their scientists managed to "grab hold" of Earth somehow and pull the two planets towards each other.

_That_ was why the Earth was starting to move outward. At the same time, Mars had been moving _in_.

Partway between the two original orbits, they and we have now stabilized in a tight new orbit of the sister worlds one around the other. Our distance from the sun, the Martians' mathematics and ours have proven, will remain the same from now on as it is today.

It will always be cooler here, now, than we humans have been used to. And on Mars, it will stay warmer than the icy climate our new friends have always known. But now the two peoples can help each other, sharing our science to find ways of bringing our worlds back into the ranges of heat and cold that will be comfortable for all of us, if new.

Today I painted a picture I call "The Dancing Sisters." It shows one blue-green jewel planet and one ruby world, swirling around in safety with a bright (if small) and very steady sun shining keenly in the background... not where any of us have grown up knowing it, but just exactly where it should be.

I gave the painting to one of our new Martian friends. In return, he gave me a mechanical book of poetry that he composed himself. It plays the words printed inside as music and song by itself when I open it. The title of the book is, "We Found Our Friends."

* * *

_You may notice that in the great scheme of things, day comes before night and winter comes before spring. And once in a while, the ultimate terror may come before a lasting friendship._

_If you want to visit the dancing worlds where the two races now safeguard each other, just hop aboard the nearest flight of fancy... to the Twilight Zone._


End file.
